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hybum 's review for:
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
by Alex Haley
This book is extremely long. I admit I began to feel weary after we changed main characters for the third time, but then I realized it was long by necessity. They say form follows function. If the story felt really long, that's because slavery felt really long! I wanted so badly for the family to escape to freedom before they did, but that's not how history works. They, of course, wanted that escape far more than I did, but escape eluded them.
Reading Roots is a journey, and the time you spend with this family really makes you grow attached to them. To me it felt much like Great Expectations, another long story that has an incredible pay off and makes you fall in love with its characters. I loved how the characters in Roots felt like real people. They had flaws. You didn't always support their decisions. But you always felt for them and rooted for them every step of the way.
I also loved reading American history from the perspective of the slaves. Over the course of the century or so that the main story spans, the slaves hear news of the revolution, civil war, emancipation, etc. in bits and pieces from what they hear the white people talking about. As a Canadian who barely knows that history anyway, I loved learning from that unique perspective, especially after having just watched the Hamilton musical, the events of which come up here and there in Roots.
This book also really gives you more of an appreciation for just how truly horrible slavery was, which seems like such an obvious understatement. But when you think of slavery, you often think of the physical burdens and the atrocity of not being able to decide your future for yourself. Roots helps you understand the emotional, mental, and spiritual anguishes of being ripped from families, the cultural genocide, and so many other aspects of slavery that sometimes either get glossed over or simply forgotten over time. In that regard, I think Roots is an extremely important book.
Finally, I am aware of the controversy surrounding Alex Haley and whether this is an actual history, considering the accusations of plagiarism and such. I actually wrote a paper about it during my undergrad. Having now actually read the book, I think he explains himself fairly well in the final chapter, but ultimately I don't even think it matters that much. I'd like it to be a true story, but even if it's not, that doesn't impact how important this book is or the impact it had and can still have on the world, which is basically the conclusion I came to in the paper.
Reading Roots is a journey, and the time you spend with this family really makes you grow attached to them. To me it felt much like Great Expectations, another long story that has an incredible pay off and makes you fall in love with its characters. I loved how the characters in Roots felt like real people. They had flaws. You didn't always support their decisions. But you always felt for them and rooted for them every step of the way.
I also loved reading American history from the perspective of the slaves. Over the course of the century or so that the main story spans, the slaves hear news of the revolution, civil war, emancipation, etc. in bits and pieces from what they hear the white people talking about. As a Canadian who barely knows that history anyway, I loved learning from that unique perspective, especially after having just watched the Hamilton musical, the events of which come up here and there in Roots.
This book also really gives you more of an appreciation for just how truly horrible slavery was, which seems like such an obvious understatement. But when you think of slavery, you often think of the physical burdens and the atrocity of not being able to decide your future for yourself. Roots helps you understand the emotional, mental, and spiritual anguishes of being ripped from families, the cultural genocide, and so many other aspects of slavery that sometimes either get glossed over or simply forgotten over time. In that regard, I think Roots is an extremely important book.
Finally, I am aware of the controversy surrounding Alex Haley and whether this is an actual history, considering the accusations of plagiarism and such. I actually wrote a paper about it during my undergrad. Having now actually read the book, I think he explains himself fairly well in the final chapter, but ultimately I don't even think it matters that much. I'd like it to be a true story, but even if it's not, that doesn't impact how important this book is or the impact it had and can still have on the world, which is basically the conclusion I came to in the paper.